Tourist arrivals record increase following Easter attacks

Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka has recorded an increase following the deadly Easter Sunday attacks.

The total number of international tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka during October 2019 was 118,743, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority said.

In comparison to October last year, there was a decline of 22.5% when the arrivals were 153,123.

As at 31st October 2019, 1,495,055 of tourists had visited Sri Lanka for this year. It is a decline of 20.7% over last year when 1,885,045 of tourists has visited the country during the same period.

However, Sri Lanka saw a 70.8% significant drop in arrivals in May 2019 compared to 2018 due to the Easter Sunday Attacks in April. Further, the change in arrivals between 2018 and 2019 was 57% in June, 46.9% in July, 28.3 % in August, 27.2% in September and in October it was 22.5%.

“It is indeed refreshing to see the arrival numbers growing since April and we are just 20.7% behind last year’s arrival rate for the same period. We anticipate the numbers to grow further in the months of November through March considering that’s the peak season for Sri Lanka. By January, we should be able to analyse the exact percentage of decline from a volume perspective, however, the financial recovery will take longer. Our projected revenue for 2019 is estimated to be between USD 3.5 to 3.6 Billion” Johanne Jayaratne, Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority shared.

This month, the largest source markets for tourists were India, followed by China and the United Kingdom.

Almost 98 % of tourists travelled by air to Sri Lanka. Even though, the numbers are lower than the previous years, the trend of month to month is similar which indicates that the seasonal market behaviour has not changed.